I just successfully completed an upgrade to my 2011 mini, adding an SSD drive with the extra cable I bought. The drive, a Corsair Force GT 240 gb, was previously in my MBP, but I removed it from there because I was actually losing 5-10% battery life relative to the mechanical HD previously in it. This is relevant to my question because the SSD has on it all the formatting for the MBP, and I want it to have the same software as the mechanical drive in the mini. My question is how to best go about this. Would you suggest:
(1) wipe the SSD with Disk Utility, reinstall Lion from scratch and then migrate apps and settings from the mini HD? or
(2) wipe the SSD with Disk Utility and clone the mini HD onto it (I have Carbon Copy Cloner)
(3) don't wipe, just clone
(4) use Carbon Copy Cloner to just clone my home folder and apps
(5) something else?

Note that when I first got the SSD, I installed Lion from scratch, migrated my MBP stuff with Migration Assistant and then updated the system, so the version of Lion on my SSD is fresh and current and there is an emergency disk on it. Option #4 looks to be the quickest way to get on the SSD what I want, but I worry about settings that might not carry over because they aren't in my home folder. Option #1 looks like the best from the perpective of having a fresh install with everything on it that I need, but is it a good idea to just wipe the whole SSD?_________________Mini 1 (2012): 2.3 ghz Core i7; 10 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2 (2009): 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate used as HTPC
Also a 13" MacBook Air, 21.5" i5 iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, openSUSE & Crunchbang

Just in case anyone goes through something like this, I ended up reformatting the drive with Disk Utility. To then do a clean install, I had to boot into the Recovery Partition because the Lion installer refused to work from a disk that already had 10.7.4 on it. Once the Recovery Partition was finished the clean install of Lion, a dialogue box came up asking me about transfer of programs and settings. I was able to select the mechanical drive already in the mini, so now I have a clean install with all my old programs and settings on the new SSD. It really speeds up the mini! _________________Mini 1 (2012): 2.3 ghz Core i7; 10 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2 (2009): 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate used as HTPC
Also a 13" MacBook Air, 21.5" i5 iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, openSUSE & Crunchbang

Hi Fox, when I bought my new mini
I used Migration Assistant to move
everything from the old mini to the
new. The original Hard Drive was used.
I latter added an SSD to the new mini
and simply Cloned everything from
the Internal HD to the new Internal
SSD using CCC. Everything went well
and its FAST as HELLLLLL!

bilb, I didn't have trouble with Migration Assistant; the trouble was with the Lion installer. It refused to install onto the SSD because the disk I was operating from already had 10.7.4 on it. Once I got Lion installed with the recovery partition, the migration of the rest of the data was done by the equivalent of Migration Assistant, but as a continuation of the installation process started by Recovery Assistant. I knew I could clone the HD and get it done that way, but I wanted a clean install of the OS first._________________Mini 1 (2012): 2.3 ghz Core i7; 10 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2 (2009): 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate used as HTPC
Also a 13" MacBook Air, 21.5" i5 iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, openSUSE & Crunchbang

Not sure where to look so feel free to redirect me if this question has been answered elsewhere. I am replacing my 2007 mini. I have a mid-2011 mini quad core server 2.0 GHz coming. It has Mountain lion installed. I am going to swap out the bottom drive with an OWC 240G SSD (also en route) and upgrade the RAM to 16G. I would like to simply migrate my exisiting superduper backup of Lion (then upgrade to ML if I want to - haven't decided yet!) onto the new mini, keeping the OS and apps on the SSD and the rest of my home folder on the HDD. I have rarely (if ever!) gone into terminal for anything, and was wondering if someone can give me a "dummies" or newbies version of how best to go about this process without tearing my hair out or going to the apple store Or should I just place the entire home folder (apps and all) on the HDD? I just thought having the apps on the SSD would speed them up (my reason for going SSD in the first place). Thanks to all.

I just thought having the apps on the SSD would speed them up (my reason for going SSD in the first place). Thanks to all.

I would really consider doing a fresh install of Mountain Lion on the SSD. That gives you the best and most reliable base to start from. Then install your apps on the SSD for faster access. You don't want them sitting on the remaining 500GB drive. Just use that one for your files and media. I would also think about using the pulled 500GB in an external enclosure as a backup for the remaining internal 500GB drive. Then you won't have to worry about failures, cause you can swap them right out._________________2011 Mac mini with 8GB of RAM
2012 Mac mini Server with 16GB of RAM
46" Sony TV
24" HP LCD
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse
2 x 1TB MiniStacks
1TB MiniStack Max

I have an enclosure coming from OWC for the HDD I'm removing for just what you suggested I am wondering the best way to migrate my files across to the remaining HD so that the OS will find them. From the little I've been able to find, there might be a problem since they normally would be all installed on the same drive. Just moving them might make it so that the system might not find them. I read (and bookmarked the page) that the best way is to go into terminal and re-write a few lines to tell the OS where they are - ie on a different drive than the OS would expect them to be. Am I making any sense? Or is this a non-issue? I'm trying to line up the ducks so that when everything arrives I can do the upgrading and migrate my files from my old mini with a few hiccups as possible.